Kozen Fighter Belt

Kozen Fighter Belt

Earlier this year we reviewed a kimono from the up and coming brand “Kozen Fighter”. Their kimono got high marks and since that time we’ve been testing out one of their belts.

Tying, washing, drying, tying, washing, drying…

Quick Review

Quality Construction

Ages nicely

Thicker

Minimal shrinkage with Cold wash/Hang Dry

IMG_9288 copyheader

IMG_5392 copy

IMG_9287 copy

IMG_5397 copy

8 rows of stitching

IMG_5391 copy

The design of the Kozen Fighter Belt is pretty straight forward when it comes to belts.

The color was a richer blue than I was used to considering I’ve had the light blue WAR belt (As seen here in our follow up review) for a little bit of time now. The Kozen has faded nicely over the past few months of hard wear and wash and hasn’t overly faded like some belts have been reported to. (See my WAR Belt, it almost looks white now but to their credit it was a light blue anyways)

It is rather firm for a belt and at first the knot was hard to keep together while rolling and the belt did come off a lot. Persistence is key though and over time it has softened up, but not so much that the belt is flimsy. It is still firm but not as much as when I first received the belt.

As you can see from the above photo though, the knot is still a thicker one and the ends don’t fall over. They’re still pretty stiff. (Above picture was on a mannequin with a gi on, you’ll see why later)

IMG_9292 copy

IMG_9290 copy

IMG_9294 copy

IMG_9298 copy

IMG_9297 copy

IMG_9299 copy

As you can see from the photos above the belt is wider and thicker than the Moya Brand belt and the WAR Belt. These were the only two I had on hand at the time but it is still thicker and wider than most other belts that aren’t custom made. The only thing that concerns me about the belt is the length of the rank bar as it is considerably shorter than most other belts.

I’m not concerned for myself though as I don’t like stripes anyways, but stripes do mean a lot to quite a bit of practitioners.

SHRINKAGE

With a cold wash and hang dry there was very minimal shrinkage, maybe an inch. After a while I did start drying the belt in the dryer just to see what kind of shrinkage would happen if someone accidentally threw it in the dryer or if they did want to dry the belt regardless.

At the time of this being written I have gotten about 3 inches of shrinkage after the initial cold wash shrinkage so take this into consideration when you plan to purchase. It looks like its at a stopping point for shrinkage.

Conclusion

I haven’t had a ton of experience with belts as I’ve had three belts in my journey, but it seems to me that the Kozen Fighter belt is made well and should last a normal amount of time at a belt level. Defining a normal amount of time though would be hard as belt promotions vary school to school.

***I’m not sure if they still have these for sale as all items have been pulled from their online store. I’m assuming they’re getting ready to restock in preparation for their newest kimono release, “The Purple Scorpion” so look for a restock in their online store soon***